Universal’s “The Fate of the Furious” easily blew past the rest of the competition to take first place at the box office on Friday. The eighth film in the “Fast & Furious” franchise scored $45.6 million from 4,310 screens, giving it the second-highest opening Friday in franchise history.
“Fate”‘s opening slots between the $38.7 million scored by “Fast & Furious 6” and the whopping $67.4 million scored two years ago by “Furious 7” in the wake of the death of the franchise’s longtime star, Paul Walker. Universal now projects “Fate” will finish the weekend with $103 million.
Directed by “Straight Outta Compton” filmmaker F. Gary Gray, “Fate of the Furious” follows Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) as he is blackmailed into turning against his crew by the mysterious villain Cipher (Charlize Theron). Confused and hurt by their leader’s betrayal, Luke Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) and the rest of the team must band together to stop Dom and Cipher with the unexpected help of their former adversary, Deckard Shaw (Jason Statham).
The film currently has a 62 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes, down from the franchise high 79 percent of “Furious 7,” but “Fate” was still a hit with its devoted fans, scoring an A on CinemaScore.
In a distant second was DreamWorks’ “The Boss Baby,” which made $6.5 million in its third Friday to bring its domestic cume to $106 million. Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” made $5.1 million to start its fifth weekend in theaters after crossing the $1 billion worldwide mark earlier this week. The remake now has a domestic total of $447.5 million.
Rounding out the top 5 are “Smurfs: The Lost Village” and “Going in Style,” both of which are entering their second frame. Sony’s “Smurfs” made $2.7 million, while New Line/Village Roadshow’s “Going in Style” made $2.1 million.